made hard work of it for sure but through to the next round that's all that matters. was always going to be tricky game. Dereham had nothing to lose, could be worse a few conference north teams lost to lower league teams today. great to see newsh get a good run out as he continues his comeback.
Not that hard work - we led for all but 12 minutes of the game!
By my reckoning, 7 Conf North teams are out and 6 of those lost to lower league teams, including Barrow. Playing teams from 2 or 3 divisions below you is not a guaranteed win, most of those teams can be competitive in a one off game. Same when we play a Conf Prem team - we'd expect to give them a good game even if we didn't win. Lower league team ups its game, higher league team not as motivated as they usually are, and it's a close game.
I thought this was job done, decent performance without being spectacular, but let's save our best performances for when we need them. Get the money in the bank and look forward to the next round.
This team is still developing, two more new players today, so let's see how we look in another month or so. Early signs are promising as we're well placed in the league without (hopefully) playing our best.
A bit of a run in the Cup can only help confidence - look at Zak Mills today, his best game for us so far, and hopefully he can continue to play like that
